


The Moment I Awaken Ghosts

by brokenmemento



Category: Harley Quinn (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Emotions, F/F, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24726244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento
Summary: A look into the evolution of Ivy's feelings for Harley based on the events from the show.
Relationships: Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy, Pamela Isley & Harleen Quinzel, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Comments: 23
Kudos: 305





	1. Prologue/One

**Author's Note:**

> *Title from the penultimate installment of Gotham City Sirens comic.  
> **Rating will probably stay T. (Unless some big things happen in the next two episodes)  
> ***Story does pull from the comics A BIT but mostly, the personalities and story are from what we know of these characters in the animated series and is set early season 2. The big moments haven't happened between them yet in this story.

The unpredictability of Harley Quinn is a story that the news loves to soak in, to cast on tv screens throughout the city. They’re the clowns though, not Harley. She’s not the person they make her out to be, the vilified figure on which they hang the failures of the town (among others) 

And while she had started out a wild card, a suit in the deck that Pamela Isley wasn’t anticipating, she’d been changed since that first wild moment their eyes had met initially. The word warped is a bit strong, but he had ultimately done that to her. Since then, Ivy has been trying to beat out the dents, show her she’s been beaten a little but she is still capable of function.

These nights are few and far between now, where they let the darkness and quiet envelope them. So much has altered the trajectory of the way they deal with one another. Ivy isn’t supposed to acquiesce to words like _hold me_. She isn’t supposed to agree to wrap her arms around Harley’s body and hold her as the hours tick. Her place isn’t really here anymore. 

It’s across town in a room where neon lights the walls in what would normally be pitch. In a room where her foliage and greenery are absent. Where she absolutely can’t smell the intoxicating scent of shampoo in the blonde tresses dipped with the color of candy at the ends.

Harley has that ability though. To take her out at the knees. 

It’s why she’s been letting her crawl in time and time again. It’s this path that’s changed in her chest that has her closing her eyes against Harley’s body and thinking about the moments that make up who they are with one another. 

The movie reel of them plays on her eyelids at night. Sometimes it’s a wonderful thing to see inside her mind. Other times, it’s a beating reminder. Of how she has let Harley get entirely too close to her heart. How she’s wrapped around it like a vine.

**\---One---**

Arkham is a fucking shithole. And really, she should be above this now-getting caught and transported back through the heavy metal doors that ask for all who enter to abandon hope. That would be if she wasn’t so damn good at getting out. 

The alarms being tripped by her fucking shit up is one of her most favorite sounds (if she’s being honest). She likes the look on all of their faces when she finagles her escape plan into action. Everything is going wonderfully, perfectly flawless until she runs smack dab into a blue and doe-eyed blonde lying on the floor right in front of her avenue of escape.

The second their eyes meet, it startles her a little. The downright way they seem to dance with adrenaline and fear. It’s so beyond what Ivy is expecting so when the men flood the hall and hide her with their bodies and flamethrowers, Ivy finds herself shuffling to make another attempt to glance at her. 

It’s got to be this reason that she doesn’t impale the idiots spraying her with flames. It’s why she lets the heat melt her and her hands raise up in the air. 

The tranquilizing dart works quickly, the substance flooding her bloodstream, and she folds onto her knees almost instantly. As she’s dragged down the hall, she raises her bleary eyes to catch those piercing blue ones again. Somewhere between the swimming of her vision and the firm grips on her arms, she’s able to form a thought: this place is going to chew up and spit that one out until she’s barely alive. 

But then said one is standing outside of her cell, voice sounding tinny through the speaker. 

“I’m so sorry. They shouldn’t have done that,” her eyes are all sincere and her tone apologetic. 

Who the fuck does this woman think she is, with her too red lipstick and perfectly quaffed bun? She can’t be more than twenty-five, at the oldest, so Ivy manages to rise even though her arms are practically strapped across her back, and make her way to the glass where the woman stands. 

She’s still in Arkham, still in this dreadful place, so she’s all boiling rage and violence. If she closes her eyes, she can almost feel the freedom on her fingertips, the current of it an electric shock in her body. So yeah, she’s wicked pissed. 

“Fuck off, narc,” she spits and watches it slide down the glass. 

Just because someone is pretty doesn’t give them a right to think they can manipulate and control. An apology? How juvenile of her. Arkham is all hard edges and harsh words. There’s no softness here, no beauty to be found. 

Until there is. 

Ivy has told the woman to fuck off in literally every way she knows how. The woman has pried more out of her in five seconds than she’s let go in weeks at those banal group sessions they insist she attends. It’s unnerving, to say the least, but even more so when the doctor slips the delicate tendril through the drawer. 

Ivy has mere moments to decide what to do, to turn this incredibly dumb decision on this woman’s part into a weapon of destruction and chaos…or something else. 

“I could kill you with this,” Ivy growls. 

“Yeah, you could,” she says and her face is so damn _smug_ about the whole thing.

Where is that fear from before? There’s death on all sides and really, a vine could easily crack the glass and wrap around her pretty little neck before she has time to process what has happened. 

But she walks away with her self satisfied smile and Ivy stands immobile as the disbelief sloshes around inside of her chest. Speaking to the plant, brushing her fingers against the fading life of it, it curls and twists. Pink blossoms form and unfurl. 

It’s the first sign of beauty she’s seen in ages. 

So in her own incredibly dumb decision, she trails them to the forest. He’s a psychopath and lacks even a base for human empathy (Ivy could give a shit if she wanted to. She just _doesn’t_ 99.9% of the time) so it’s fairly easy to know that he’s using the pretty young thing draped over his back as collateral. Or a shield. 

And sure enough, when the bullets fly, he’s throwing her into the fray instead of himself. So she asks the forest to aid, calls upon the green to spike, and snatch the bullet out of the air. 

Ivy would never admit it to another living soul, but she actually likes the way this Quinzel woman peers up at her through thick lashes and the way she manages to ruffle her emotions a little. If only because it proves she still has them. 

When she takes Ivy’s hand, when their skin touches for the first time, it reminds Ivy that she’s alive too. 

The flames come again, the deja vu of it. Quinzel is on the ground again but this time, she’s looking like she needs a savior and turning to Ivy with pleading eyes. 

The sheer improbability of the words leaving her own mouth staggers Ivy even more, “I surrender” never being a part of her vocabulary. While her wild mouth is on its roll, it even decides to say that she’s thinking about seeing a new therapist and honestly, who the fuck is she right now?

Quinzel has clipped her with gardening shears and she can’t even find it in herself to be mad when the tranq dart hits her in the neck again and she wilts like a flower. 

This time as she’s being dragged, a small smile plays on her lips. 

**************

When she enters the room, the lighting is soft. There’s little on the wall, save for the woman’s credentials which Ivy stares at a little too long. 

“I promise I’m qualified,” the doctor almost smirks but seems to think better of it, professionalism and all. 

“That wasn’t...I mean, that’s not why I was…”

“It’s okay,” she says softly and motions for Ivy to sit. 

Ivy does not, instead standing awkwardly with her wrists and ankles chained together. She rubs at the metal biting into her hands and watches as Quinzel makes an almost imperceptible grimace. Almost. 

“I tried to tell them you didn’t need them for your session but after the forest…”

“It’s fine,” Ivy cuts off quickly.

She feels like a shifty teenager trying to impress the teacher. But the teacher has already shown some favoritism toward her, so why is she so damn nervous? She’s Poison Ivy, the kiss of death. Harleen Quinzel should be cowering before her in fear. 

Heat prickles along Ivy’s collar and while she normally revels in it, this is the kind that feels too human to be normal. Wanting to do anything other than feel, she moves to the beat-up couch and sits. Her manacles scrape on the leather and leave scuff marks. She looks at the gash and then Quinzel, who studies her curiously. 

“Yeah, uh, so this therapy stuff,” she clears her throat to bring down whatever tension is lining the room. 

Because the expectation for her is to pour her soul out, right? That’s what all these psychologists want, to “break through” to the nut cases and then publish their findings in some esteemed journal for their peers to read. Ivy knows all about this. _Because I used to be almost like you..._

“Right, this therapy ‘stuff’,” Dr. Quinzel raises an eyebrow and nods. Ivy notices a pen absent from her hand. There’s also no Manila file folder resting on her lap. Ivy stares at her mutely. Her face changes under the scrutiny. “What?”

“Aren’t you going to, like, write notes or something? Read my file and tell me how my problems can be traced back to some deep-seated repression and the lack of love I received from a parental figure in my life?” Dr. Quinzel cocks her head to the side but says nothing. Ivy shifts uncomfortably. “Because that’s what all of you do.”

“All of who?”

“Shrinks. You jot things down. You ‘listen’ and ‘care’ and expect us to be in tears and cured when we walk out of the door.”

“What if I told you that people can’t be changed? That you are who you are and I’ll never be able to penetrate that?” she throws out. 

“Wait, what?” Ivy jerks her head to look at the woman. 

“If there is darkness in you, I will never pry it out. I can only hope to give you a light to shine on it sometimes. That’s how we keep demons away. We don’t give them the solitude to fester and grow.”

“Is this some reverse psychology shit? Where you tell me I can’t be helped, which, in essence, helps me?” 

She watches as the doctor grabs the edges of her white coat, crosses her slender but toned legs again, and folds her arms across her flat stomach. Those blue eyes shine from behind the black frames atop her nose. 

_You’re noticing too much, Ivy…_

“I’m here to listen to whatever you want to tell me. Whether that’s everything or nothing is up to you,” she offers. 

Ivy wants to resist. She truly and honestly does. But Dr. Harleen Quinzel has a way about her that makes Ivy want to speak it all. So, uncharacteristically, she begins. 

***************

When she wakes up from the dream, Harley is snoring next to her. The steady rise and fall of her chest soothes Ivy again, her thumping heart settling against the memory and Harley’s body. 

Light peeks through the window, a barely there tint but coming quickly. She’ll have to leave soon. She always does these days. But for now, she can sit against the fading vision in her mind and the solidness of Harley in her arms. 

The woman who, now, barely resembles that person she met years ago. Sure, there are flickers, but Harley Quinn and Dr. Harleen Quinzel are the Jekyll/Hyde that Ivy wishes never had to split. 

If Ivy were a different woman, maybe she could have stopped it. Maybe she could have stopped the taint that the Joker laid upon her. 

But as Harley shifts in her arms, shuffles impossibly closer to the warmth of Ivy’s body, she thinks that if she had, she might not feel for Harley as much as she does now. 

And that? That feels like some sort of contentment despite the way things have transpired.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I'm trying to get most of this uploaded before the end of the season next Friday, so chapters will come fairly quickly due to their smaller length  
> **Also, sorry for any pronoun confusion. It was hard to tell the story in the first chapter because I wanted Ivy to not really know who Harley was at first. Synonyms at that point were hard to come by, lol. And yes, this is from Ivy's point of view

She’s supposed to be with Chuck, but she hasn’t seen her best friend in a while. It seems like they’ve both been going opposite directions, what with Harley getting into regular mischief with her crew and all, so when she invites Ivy over for some “chill vibin’ only,” Ivy accepts immediately. 

After some shitty take out that Harley shovels in way too quickly and a barely there salad for herself, they make their way to the roof of the mall with beers in hand. 

Ivy stops when she sees the small setup a few paces away. Blankets line the ground, a few pillows too. A metal bucket with ice and a couple more drinks are beside the pallet. The ambient light of Gotham illuminates the scene and Ivy swallows, hopefully not audibly. 

“Uh, what’s all this?” she motions. 

A grin works its way into Harley’s face and she makes an exaggerated shrug like it’s nothing. “You’ve just been pretty absent lately, what with fucking a hot air balloon and all…”

“It’s a kite,” Ivy corrects in exasperation. “That’s his shtick. You know that.”

“And anyway…” she rolls her eyes and drags out the word, “I miss hanging out and thought we could have a little girl’s night. Like old times.” 

Moving her beer to her right hand, she uses her left to grab Ivy’s hand and pull her along. Shuffling, Ivy tries to resist a bit at first but Harley’s good mood is permeating and a smile curls at her lips eventually too as she’s led to the spread that’s been prepared. 

Harley motions for her to sit down, so she does. Right after, Harley plops down too, their shoulders rubbing together and their thighs lining up to touch. This shouldn’t be weird, so normal for them that it’s almost second nature. As her arm weaves through Ivy’s and pulls her back on the waiting pillows though, it seems to hold a bit more gravity than a regular night. 

Ivy feels the coolness of the beer in her hands, the glass bottle sweating to deposit the condensation on her skin. Harley’s arm is still looped around hers and she rolls and sets her bottle on the ground between them. Her head makes its way to Ivy’s shoulder and she looks up. 

“I wonder what it’s like to look up and see stars,” she muses and presses her cheek into Ivy’s black jacket. 

Since when does Harley Quinn ponder the presence of celestial objects? Ivy has to wonder. Deflecting, she lets smooth irritation lace her tone. 

“If Gotham would be more concerned about its greenhouse emissions, smothering smog, and use of a more sustainable form of electricity that was mutually beneficial to the environment, we might know.”

“Get down from your ozone pedestal,” Harley chastises. 

“I live there, hon,” Ivy retorts. 

Harley gives her a playful shove and they both laugh at the jesting. Ivy watches as her face goes wistful and she turns a little to look at her better. She ignores the press of Harley’s hand working its way into her own. 

“What’s with the look? You aren’t one I would ever call pensive,” Ivy tries.

“Ya remember when we first met and you gave me that shot so I would be immune to the toxins ya have?” 

Her Brooklyn accent slips in a bit and yes, Ivy thinks of it often. Especially after her dream not long ago. The warm skin of Harley’s hand also serves as a reminder that before the injection, this would have been impossible. 

“Like yesterday,” Ivy admits. 

She’d had Harley follow her back to her hideout. The lab had been dusty from disuse, another stint at Arkham under her belt. This time she had managed to leave with more than just herself, _Mistah J’s_ girl trailing not far behind. 

“Don’t get too close,” Ivy had had to warn. 

The escape had left her sweating and she knew her body would be secreting the toxins it used as a defense mechanism. If Harley were to get near, she would surely be on the receiving end. 

The counter mixture had taken a few hours, but Harley had sat unnervingly quiet, head sagging and shoulder blades pushed out in defeat. During the preparation, Ivy had chanced looks at her, the drained version of the once brilliant woman she had known. Now, a hollowed-out shell sat on the floor of Ivy’s atrium, dejected because her criminal kingpin had left her to rot inside of Arkham’s cinder block walls. The first time of many.

“If you’re going to be hanging out with me, you’ll need this,” Ivy held up the syringe with the antidote to her poison. 

Rising, Harley had pulled off the jester’s cap on her head and given a rather blank look at Ivy as she sidled forward. Her hair was a mess and swept wildly at her shoulders. 

“And what makes you think this is going to be a regular thing, Red?” she had pursed her lips. Ivy tried to ignore the dark circles under her eyes. 

_Red_. That’s what she had called Ivy. “Well, you’re fucking standing here, aren’t you? I’d suggest if you don’t want to die whenever you get near me, you let me administer this.” Her words were clipped, clinical almost. 

She’d had to suck in a breath when Harley had reached behind her and unzipped the black and red suit, peeling it down to rest on her hips with nothing left to cover her up top. 

“Iz is gonna hurt, Red? Cause I’m real good with pain,” Harley had said in a way that made Ivy’s blood boil, an obvious reference to _him_. 

She’d watched as Harley placed her palms down on the wooden table Ivy had used to create the antidote, her hips jutting out and the suit dipping a little to begin to show the swell of her bottom. As Harley had reached a hand back to pull the fabric down further, Ivy had quickly caught her wrist to stop her, but then jerked away just as fast. 

“It doesn’t go in your ass, Harley,” Ivy had murmured. 

“My apologies,” Harley said, the words less than sincere. “So where then?” she had asked, stepping closer. 

Ivy tapped her own neck. “Straight to the source.”

Harley’s bare chest was grazing Ivy’s cream-colored tank then, her physicality in Ivy’s every sense. And no, this wasn’t Harleen Quinzel anymore. While not demure, the doctor would never have been so brazen in front of Ivy. Instead of letting the woman see that it rattled her, Ivy gripped Harley’s spandex-clad hip with her hand and brought the syringe up to her neck, never once letting her eyes stray from the blonde’s.

There was a palpable eroticism to injecting Harley, a too dangerous playing with fire type of flaring between them that felt more antagonistic than friendly. That was more charged in raw sexuality than helping out a potential partner in crime. 

When it became too much, Ivy had plunged the needle into the pale skin of Harley’s neck, watched as she had opened her glistening lips against the momentary pain of having the metal sliding into her flesh. The act had left them both breathing heavy, panting against one another. 

_This isn’t fucking right_ , Ivy had thought. 

“So I’m immune to ya now?” Harley had barely whispered. 

“Something like that,” was Ivy’s answer. 

How they’d managed to extricate themselves from that, to erect not exactly safer barriers but ones more rooted in traditional friendship, Ivy will never know.

That night, she had thought very seriously about making Harley Quinn hers. About taking her just like she was used to. But thankfully, that rogue emotion had been stuffed down and out of sight. She’d managed to keep it boxed away, in her dark place that Harley had mentioned once. However, this place was not one Ivy ever shined a light. 

“I’m glad you did, Ive,” Harley murmurs against her, bringing her back to the present. 

She’s not drunk enough for this, the two bottles she’s managed to consume barely taking the edge off of the annoyingly persistent rogue feeling she’s tried to hide for years. 

“Me too, Harls. If not, who would be pulling you out of vats of margarita mix?”

“Or helping me beat up Batman in front of a live tv audience?”

“Or save me from being jolted off a semi-truck.”

“Or snapping deranged trees in half to catch me from falling from their clutches,” Harley smiles dreamily and then she’s looking into Ivy’s face and their gazes are holding a little too long. 

_I want to kiss her_ , Ivy thinks but knows that she can’t. Not when she is supposed to belong to someone else. Not when she has promised herself to always let _this_ go without light. 

A shrill sound shatters their focus and luminescence has them both squinting against it. Her phone has worked its way out of her jacket pocket and now lies between them, lit up and showing the moniker and emoji she’s chosen for him in her contacts. 

When she glances back up, she sees the sadness on Harley’s face and desperately wants to confess wanting to feel her lips against her. Ivy’s body feels the loss of her when Harley sits up. There’s nothing to do but reluctantly follow. 

“Wifey duty calls,” Harley rolls her eyes but Ivy can hear the melancholy in her voice. 

“It’s not...it’s nothing like that,” Ivy runs a hand through her red hair idly and looks at their hands, so close to touching on the ground between them. 

It’s why she’s not expecting to feel Harley’s lips against her cheek because she’s been so busy watching her hands. The touch lingers and Ivy closes her eyes against it, lets her chest cave in a little when Harley pulls away. 

“Not yet,” Harley sighs and looks off.

 _You never call me Red anymore_ , the thought bounces through Ivy’s mind. It leaves along with Harley’s retreating form. 

Ivy doesn’t know how long she sits on the rooftop of the mall, not budging. Finally, when her phone pings again, she gets up and walks to the ledge, falling backward into the waiting vines. 

She finds little solace in the temporary free fall. Probably because she’s been doing it with Harley for as long as she can remember. 


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Ivy is essentially 30 in the show but I went with a general idea of her being in her 20s when she was first introduced in the comics in 1966. Any age related errors are my own. I didn't dig too deep into the comics.

“Alright, so the new restaurant by the park is absolute garbage and they are 100% embellishing the term “gastropub.” Who doesn’t even offer a vegan plan? It’s 2020 for chrissakes, so I’m all about giving it one star on its Yelp review,” Ivy bemoans as she walks through the sliding doors. “17.99 for a Cobb salad with only a light vinaigrette is exorbitant.”

When she gets no response from Harley, she frowns. The tv screen flickers in the pale light of the expansive and empty mall. Harley has her knees pulled up into her chest, chin resting atop them and arms wrapped tightly around herself. Her face is devoid of much emotion, instead rather blank. 

“Um, earth to Harls,” Ivy waves a hand in front of her face. 

She jolts a little bit and turns her disinterested gaze to Ivy. “And you’re surprised another meal bored you to tears? I told you that you could do better.” Harley shrugs a little at this. 

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Ivy grimaces. Her own voice sounds loud so she pinches the bridge of her nose and works to calm her agitation. She doesn’t feel like fighting over this again. Glancing in all directions, Ivy doesn’t hear anything other than the old set. Not that she gives a shit about some of the crew (Psycho, just Psycho. Fucking troll) but she wonders where they have all disappeared to. “Where is everyone?”

“Clayface thinks he’s a hormonal post-pubescent human so he’s on the college campus again. Psycho said something about doing his own thing, yet he took King Shark with him and left me here because they’re all still a little pissed about how shit went down at Freeze’s,” Harley shrugs. 

“Not like Psycho’s balls being shrunk to nonexistence in a block of ice for hours on end is any different from their normal size,” Ivy quips and comes to sit beside Harley. “Get it? It’s a small dick joke.” 

Harley says nothing, instead staring straight ahead. Ivy looks at the screen, frowning. It’s not their usual HGTV station, instead on A&E. When she sees what Harley has muted as Ivy sat down, a bit of bile rises in her throat. 

They’ve not been alone together really since Ivy accepted the ring. Sure, they had discussed how wrong the sentiment had been as they melted people’s faces off with acid, but there’s been no discussion about what this means going forward for the two of them. About how this will irrevocably change their friendship. 

Even though she’s asked for this, sitting beside Harley, it seems a bit empty in desire. For maybe wanting something and then getting it to find out it isn't really that great after all. 

“How old are you, Ive? Like, I know you don’t look a day over 30 but that’s because you’ve stopped aging, huh? All those toxins and pheromones and whatnot keep you as ripe as a peach, right?” Harley asks and Ivy has to work to catch up with the change in topic. 

“I’d be 80 this year if I were…” _normal_ Ivy wants to say. But the word is too foreign to get out. 

“I forget sometimes that you’ve seen a whole lotta life. You’ve watched things change so much since you’ve been around. My measly 26 years seems like nothing compared to the half-life you have on me.” Harley looks at the screen, the captions of _Intervention_ bubbling up on the frame. “Ya ever think about death?”

“Well, I’ve died, so yeah,” Ivy grumbles. It’s another thing they haven’t talked about. About how she was impaled by a fucking javelin essentially and felt the very life oozing out of her at a frantic pace. 

“But you’re back now. And ya won't die anymore,” Harley counters. 

“Not if I can manage to avoid all piercing objects, sure. Fingers crossed.”

 _Or run-ins with your ex-boyfriend_. That goes unsaid too. 

Harley sighs heavily and brings a blanket up around her. It isn’t really cold but she insists on wearing very minuscule amounts of clothing all of the time, so she wraps it around herself and brings Ivy into the fold as well. Her head rests against Ivy’s shoulder, a mirror of the last time they were together. Her scent is all soap and sweetness and Ivy has to control herself not to take it all in. 

“So that means you’ll have to watch me die someday,” Harley says quietly, her voice drifting. 

“Look, I can’t talk about this and watch this shit at the same time,” Ivy huffs and reaches for the remote, removing Harley’s head from her in the process. She looks at her after the television is off and furrows her brows. “Where is all this coming from?”

“I was just thinkin’....watching what the Joker did to you...it was one of the worst moments of my life. And I thought ‘I don’t want to have to go through this again because it’s just fucking awful to feel’ and then I remembered you’re gonna live forever and it will probably be me that dies first,” Harley frowns. 

“I’ve already had to imagine it,” Ivy blurts and then feels stupid. Harley’s big blue eyes are on her and her mouth hangs open like a fish. 

“What? When? I mean, I’ve done some really crazy things but nothin’ like that,” she shakes her head. 

“Every time you were with him,” Ivy whispers because if they’re talking about this, why the hell not? She looks at the blank screen again, thinks about the addicts whose lives are played out for an audience and Ivy gets unbelievably angry. Harley is a recovering addict. 

“Ive…”

“I’d lay awake at night and wonder what kind of fucked up shit he was pulling. I would always fail to understand what kind of fucking hold he had on you, like a death grip and you just couldn’t work yourself away from him. I’d imagine my phone ringing or even worse, seeing it on the damn news. In my mind, I’ve watched you die a thousand deaths, seen you take your last breath hundreds of times because of him.” 

The frankness of what she’s verbally spewed isn’t lost on her, but it’s eleven fucking pm and this is all incredibly heavy. 

“You don’t have to save me all the time, ya know. I’m pretty good at taking care of myself. I’ve got the crew now,” Harley shoots back defensively. “And even if something did happen, I know you’d be just as torn up about it as I was because you’re my…” 

Harley runs out of steam at precisely that annoying point leaving Ivy to shovel in the words that could fill the blanks. Most are indulgent, beyond what she knows Harley was going to say. But Ivy doesn’t know how to take the word ‘friend’ and turn it into ‘everything.’

Tears brim Harley’s eyes and she picks up the green tinted flesh of Ivy’s hand, her blunt and pale nails raking across her skin. Ivy tries not to shiver against the touch. 

“You’re my most important thing,” Harley says simply, as if it’s nothing. 

And maybe Ivy gasps involuntarily and maybe she pulls Harley even tighter against her because she can’t see her cry anymore without wanting to kiss each and every drop of liquid salinity away from Harley’s cheeks. 

Because that’s what Ivy thinks about almost incessantly now-kissing Harley in some type of way. Before it was on her mouth and now it’s her cheeks. How far off is it before she’s having her own psychotic break and wondering it in far more delicate places? (As if she hasn’t already, but on end, on end, _on end_ )

At some point, Harley’s breathing evens out and Ivy can tell she’s succumbed to sleep wrapped within Ivy’s arms. For a brief moment, Ivy thinks about carrying her to her room but decides against it. 

Gingerly, she lays her down against the cushion on the couch, reaching to bring the softness of the blanket more securely around her. She watches Harley sleep for a few moments, careful to make sure she won’t rouse from being moved. When it’s clear that she’s going to stay in the land of slumber, Ivy reaches out and traces a hand along the curves of her face. 

“I’ve watched a lot of people die, hon,” Ivy whispers against the shell of Harley’s ear. “None of them have meant as much as you do.” 

Even the mere thought of something happening to this woman under her hands makes her own heart feel as if it will crack into. Like she might still be alive but with a chest full of rubble to carry around. And while she loves the earth and soil and the feel of the dirt under her fingers, she can’t imagine letting it take Harley into it. 

As she leaves the mall, she wonders if it was anything like that for Harley, that breath robbing feeling, as Ivy had died in her arms.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Takes places during and between episodes 2x6-2x8
> 
> **Thanks to all who have pressed the 'kudos' button or took the time to write a comment. I am obsessed with the narrative of these two and love trying to figure out stories to tell with them.

She’s always hated him. It’s just now, she’s a little more vocal about it. Staring out across the bar, she feels the chagrin rise from deep in her body. It comes from an angry place, it’s origin much the same spot where she lost Pamela Isley and became Poison Ivy. 

Because she would kill him. 

Harley has given her plenty of reason to do so and she has witnessed it firsthand herself, but you can’t save someone from getting hit with a sledgehammer when they repeatedly keep handing it over to the person hitting them in the first place. 

So Ivy hasn’t. Instead, she’s watched Harley claw and crawl back to him more than is sane (which Harley no longer is-crazy bitch). That still hasn’t stopped Ivy from complaining loudly about what a sack of crap he is. His face may look different and his brain may be short-circuiting, but he’s still there. He has to be. And Ivy wants Harley as far away from him when he reverts back as possible. 

Sadly, in a place like Gotham, that is hard to do. Especially when the criminal social circles that they’ve been begrudgingly accepted into are rather small. Which is why when they walk out of the bar arm in arm, Ivy has little time to enjoy it before they’re being thrown a myriad of places: a cop car, a jail cell, a fucking pit. 

And even though she’s stuck forty feet below the ground, she’s already been six feet under and this is way too fucking much. So much that it keeps her awake at night and staring at the rock wall of their bunks. 

“You awake, Ive?” she hears from below and Ivy sighs heavily. 

“Yes. I’m pretty sure these beds are made out of the carved out slabs from this pit,” she rolls over in exasperation. “I really want to choke the life out of Bane right now. Too bad there’s not a vine in fucking sight or I could do that.”

Harley doesn’t say anything for a few minutes and Ivy begins to wonder what she could have possibly wanted. Then, her voice sounds again, quiet and slightly guarded.

“Are you nervous about your wedding?”

Ivy looks at the ceiling again and works to shove aside the niggling of wanting to tell Harley everything. Instead, she sighs heavily and tries to come by an answer that is both truthful and truncated. 

“It’s nerve-wracking, to say the least. And I knew there would be obstacles, but I thought I would have to work my way out of Arkham, not a fucking pit in the middle of the desert,” Ivy tells her.

“We’ll get outta this. We always do. We’ll find a way,” Harley tries to comfort. 

And really, Ivy would like to take solace in that but nothing feels exactly right anymore. Like trying on a piece of clothing that is either too big or too tight and a level of comfort is never going to be reached again. Ivy sets her jaw against the thought but then is roused from it by the tips of Harley’s fingers peeking up from the bottom bunk. Ivy doesn’t even hesitate to extend her own to lean against the touch of Harley’s hand from below, grazing across Ivy’s digits delicately. 

Harley traces the long lines of Ivy’s fingers, a butterfly soft touch, and Ivy forgets for a second that this woman crunches people’s body parts beneath the force and weight of a bat. Here, right now, no one would ever know it as she lets her fingers snake around Ivy’s to hold. The tenderness behind it, the gentle flutter of it.

“I wish we could have a sleepover,” Ivy mumbles with a gravely voice. “Like old times.”

“I think Bane would have a shit fit if he saw us curled up together in the same bed. You heard how fucking weird he was just about making it up,” Harley laughs. 

Ivy’s mind dovetails then, images flashing. Of a different life and a different world and a different story where she didn’t have to ignore what’s always been down below. Where there is just the two of them, the ability to pull Harley close in the nighttime hours and then watch her eyes flutter into wakefulness against the dawn and sun. Where Ivy’s feelings aren’t shameful or out of kelter within her own body. Where she could be who she wants to be with the person she wants to be with on end. 

Because by now, whatever she feels for Harley doesn’t much feel like something being stuffed into a dark corner and never having light shone upon it. It’s more delicate and complicated than that. Almost like a second skin that Ivy has to wear and cover every single day to avoid showing the world who she might really connect to with her soul. 

Life drags them forward then. Harley’s hand feels so far away, the memory of them lying together quietly a pressing of emotion that seems eons ago instead of last night as flames lick the edges of the pit and make Ivy want to wilt. And when Harley lets go, Ivy feels everything acutely. 

It’s why she flings herself back into the fray, tosses Harley in the air, and brings them to rest back on solid ground. Suddenly, Harley’s eyes are too blue and her smile is too perfect and Ivy’s feelings are too wild and uncontainable. 

A lot changes when you’ve felt someone’s lips against your own and when the kiss becomes a part of the fabric of their life together, Ivy knows there is no going back. But she can’t get past the surprise of actually letting the feelings boil over to the surface, is even more shocked by the fact that, no matter what she might tell herself, _Harley is kissing back._

It’s over before Ivy can even process that it’s happened. One second, there had been lips and breath and hands and the next she’d felt everything pull away and rip apart, met with a pair of wide eyes that looked about as surprised as her own visage must have looked. 

There needs to be words but Ivy has nothing. She’s been robbed. That doesn’t stop the beat of the pummeling thoughts. _Do I need to apologize?_ Thump. _What did Harley think of the kiss?_ Thump. _Have I just messed up things beyond repair?_ Thump. _How can I tell her I’ve locked the thought of this inside myself so long I forgot I was supposed to keep it contained?_ Thump. _Could we have been doing this all along if I’d made a different choice in Arkham years ago?_

It rearranges things, creates cracks in the compartments she’s worked so hard to keep everything in. Because now, she dares to hope which is a dangerous thing. Especially since she’s dismissed the stacking moments between them, his hidden the very essence of her own heart. 

There is no good way to admit she’s been falling in love for so long. Because with Harley, this isn’t safe at all. 

What if she leaves? What if she consumes Ivy completely and leaves her with nothing left for herself? Ivy can’t bear to think of it. Of loving Harley so much and so brightly that they catch on fire and eventually burn one another up. 

Harley’s track record isn’t the best either. There’s a sadistic clown in her past, the very nature of her origin story. Since she turned, she’s had a history of mayhem and violence, of chaos and death. Whereas Ivy...Ivy isn’t so displaced inside her own mind to dismiss her past or negate what she’s done. 

In her quest to let the earth continue to breathe, to reinstate the normal flow of life, she has taken many of her own. She’s shunned humanity and retreated so far away from the gaze of the world that she has almost forgotten how to be human at all. But then there had been Harley and maybe Ivy’s heart is open enough for what she’s currently got going on because Harley had the courage to unlock it. 

Ivy meant what she told Harley not long ago-that from that first instant they had laid eyes on one another that Ivy could sense Harley was a crazy bitch. There was a wildness there, a reckless abandon, that Ivy had found endearing at first and dangerous next. This from a person who has always cultivated the wild, has understood the duality of it. Of its beauty and ability to kill when you thought you had a handle on it. Nature can be unyielding and Harley feels that way a lot of the time.

This seems as good a reason as any as to why Ivy’s guarded her heart, worked to ignore the heaviness passing between them after learning the way one another’s lips taste. Because when it boils down to it, is Poison Ivy _bad_ enough to hold the interests of Harley Quinn?

Sure, she’s taken some liberties when trying to save the environment, racked up a body count that is too numerous to even know anymore. And while she’s a little messed up, she’s not completely twisted like the Joker. Could even that fraction less of chaos make Harley grow tired and wander back to the faster and freer life? 

While Ivy can control every facet of plant life in the entire world, relishing in the sheer ability of it to overpower and overtake, there is no control to be excised with Harley. Not that Ivy would ever want to, no. But it makes it incredibly difficult to hand over one of the very things she needs to live when Harley careens out of control so much of the time. 

It’s these thoughts that stockpile and shatter. It’s got to be ascribed to this, that Ivy offers subterfuge instead of truth when Harley comes into the main room of the mall wanting to talk about their kiss. Because Ivy has always seen that rogue spirit in Harley and while she’s fallen for it time and time again, she also realizes that it could ruin her for all eternity. 

And losing the one human she cares most about is a fact that she’s not willing to sacrifice into a variable. Still, as she watches Harley walk away with a slump to her shoulders that Ivy knows she without a doubt put there, it makes her wonder what is next. 

They’ve shifted too much. It’s too impossible to go back to before. The other shoe has to be waiting to drop. And Ivy has no idea what to do when it eventually does.


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intimacy, love, and everything in between

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Timeline is from 2x8-2x9  
> Also, I think this still fits into the T rating? But a VERY strong T now.  
> *Thou-who-shall-not-be-named also makes a brief appearance. For plot advancement and all.

Ivy is normally very good with danger. She’s been in many a fight that involved not only physical strength but mental endurance as well. One doesn’t become one of the most notorious villains in Gotham by being scared or flippant. 

But the kiss between her and Harley has thoroughly thrown her through a fucking loop. That danger that she had assigned to Harley feels all encompassing as she sees the eerie blue glow of the light coming from the direction of the mall. And all of a sudden, Harley has managed to wipe Ivy’s thoughts of anyone other than her. 

There’s no shitty potential in-laws, no too loud restaurant, no significant other to try and calm. There’s only the incessant beat of Harley in her mind and in her heart. 

“Take me there, now,” Ivy commands. It’s not soft. It’s a coarse pleading that makes the air vibrate with the anxiety that she feels. 

“Are you sure, babe? I mean, Harley is probably just causing some craziness. Ya know, girl stuff…”

“I need you to stop talking and open your kite and take us there,” Ivy points to the shimmering light. “Right the fuck now.”

As they glide over the downtown streets of Gotham, Ivy’s horror at just how much this has gotten out of hand in a short amount of time zigzags throughout her. 

She sees Harley amidst the flames and the chaos. Parademons litter the ground but even more flock to the sky. Ivy becomes frustratingly angry that Harley is being so careless as she throws havoc onto the world. Without purpose, without vision, there is no point to anarchy. Looking around, Ivy knows that while Harley might see, she is truly lacking sight. 

“You know me, I’m ride or die. But is this the ride that you envisioned?” Ivy has to yell over the pure terror and mayhem on the streets. 

Harley looks a bit crestfallen at the inquiry, her bravado waning enough that maybe Ivy can finally slither through. “Not exactly.”

“What’s the endgame here? What do you want?” Ivy asks with her heart and not her brain. Because when it boils down to it, she’s pretty sure she knows exactly what Harley wants. 

Because they both want the same thing: each other. 

But this is why Ivy has tried to keep Harley at an arm’s length because she reacts instead of taking the time to process. Inside of herself, Ivy is just as messed up from the kiss. So much so that she has had to still her own fingers against herself when they’ve threatened to betray the essence of her relationship with Harley. 

This is that irrevocable shift she’s felt, that other shoe waiting to drop. Ivy should have known that Harley would be the one wearing it all along. 

So when she’s lost the regalia and scepter, when she’s standing in front of Ivy as _her_ Harley again, Ivy knows that the impasse they’ve reached is coming to a head. Harley’s face never contains emotion well, the truth of it as clear to read as anything. 

“If you need to say it, “ Ivy lets out a sigh, not at all the tone she was going for. It sounds tired, almost defeated. “Just…”

The words never come and Ivy doesn’t know whether to be grateful for the interruption or bereft from the things that might have been said. Harley does a well enough job to cover the weight of what was coming-to anyone other than Ivy who has had practice reading her for years. 

The bachelorette party is approaching. Ivy lets the focus shift. She has no doubt they’ll feel the pressing of the things left unspoken tonight surface again very soon

****************************

Gotham hasn’t felt safe in a long time, especially not since the kiss, and Ivy finds herself incredibly thankful to be leaving it behind. Almost as if walking away from it could maybe alleviate some of the tension. As if what is going on between her and Harley is confined within its city limits even though it caught tinder in the middle of nowhere. 

And Ivy can’t stop the incessant swelling of her heart with each and every gesture Harley makes. She’s ridiculous with her clipboard, mapped out schedule, and over the top hat but Ivy is relieved that she doesn’t have to think too much. Harley is also distracted by trying to make the trip be as smooth as possible, so that helps either from dwelling on what’s happened so far. 

But then, everything implodes. Ivy lets herself go, takes too many shots, drinks too many margaritas. When they get dropped off by the boat back on the mainland, she’s letting Harley drag her along by the arm she’s never really unwound from her best friend’s shoulder all night. 

“You’re so good to me, Harls,” Ivy smiles dreamily, swims in the fuzzy feeling of the alcohol coating her insides and making her warm. 

“What are friends for?” she says quietly but throws Ivy a small smile that Ivy catches through the cascade of her red hair brushing into her face and eyes. 

Looking at Harley, a heat begins lower, wanton and adamant. She’s in every sense again and suddenly Ivy just wants to hold onto it forever. When they stop at Ivy’s door, she lets out a petulant groan and tries not to make it too obvious that she’s glancing at Harley’s a few steps further. She fails. 

“Am I to take your wordless protesting as a request to stay over with me tonight?” Harley asks. 

“Yes,” Ivy nods rather dramatically, the way someone does when they’ve sloshed their entire being with too much drink. She brings up a green finger and pokes Harley exaggeratedly in her pale shoulder. “That would be really nice.”

Harley takes them over to her door, tightens her hold on Ivy’s waist and Ivy mirrors the tightness of her own grip. They walk in and stand idly for a few seconds, just existing against each other. Ivy leans in, loses herself in a pink dipped pigtail and does her own breathing in. 

When she backs away, her lids feel a little heavy but she can see the way Harley is smiling at her and her heart does that thing it’s been doing all day. 

“Tonight was great,” Harley says again and why doesn’t she sound as deep into her drinks as Ivy is?

“It was perfect,” Ivy hums in agreement and closes her eyes to remember everything. 

While she’s seeing nothing but the back of her eyelids, Harley disentangles a bit and Ivy misses the heat of her immediately. It causes her eyes to pop open and reach for Harley’s retreating form, catching her by the wrist to stop her. Harley looks down at where Ivy’s fingers have curled around her and glances up at Ivy with a silent question burning in her bright eyes. 

Then Ivy is lunging forward and she thinks she hears a squeaked _Ive?_ before she’s kissing Harley again and adrift in the secrets of her dark heart. It lasts a second or two, a hard press, and then Ivy backs away to gauge for a reaction. She knows she’s in trouble before Harley even surges forward to connect them again. 

While Ivy lets Harley strip her, she pares her own self down to the ache she feels for this woman every single second she’s alive and in her presence. If a switch was flicked the first time they kissed, the first time touching Harley intimately illuminates Ivy’s whole world. Has her life been dark this whole time? Has Harley held the bulb all along? It’s staggering to gain the empirical data to support the hypothesis she formed long ago: that there was a spark to Harley Quinn. Little did Ivy know it would be herself trying to fan out the ignition of it someday. 

The world tunnels or narrows or whatever the fuck it does when there’s one singular point of focus and it’s that Harley is touching her exactly how she’s wanted her to for a shameful amount of time. 

When they’re connected, nothing but skin against skin, Ivy perhaps buries herself in the wonderfulness of it, perhaps says something along the lines of _you feel so good_ or _don’t give up on me_ or some other ridiculous shit she shouldn’t be saying. Maybe she falls asleep with nothing separating her or Harley, a satisfied smile on her lips and her heart on fire. 

She tries to distance herself from it though when she finds her scattered clothes on the floor after she stirs and sees Harley’s eyes quivering open. They’ve woken up together from hundreds of nights but this is beyond where Ivy should have ever let it go. 

It’s not hard to know she’s fucked up, that they have, no matter how much they’d had to drink. Remembering that she had practically asked for it by requesting that Harley let them spend the night together, had instigated the whole thing by kissing Harley first. Had let her lips leave Harley’s and trail down her friend’s neck. Had laid her bare beneath her and covered Harley with her body, kissing her into oblivion again. 

Ivy lasts mere hours against the flow and ebb of the memory of what they’ve done together. There is the fire flicker and Harley’s too full up eyes (that always seem to be that way) and they’re clashing together once more, hurried and wilder than before, as if they hadn’t gotten enough of one another a scant time ago. 

In her room, Ivy takes Harley just like she had wanted to the night she plunged a syringe in her neck to make her immune to every toxin Ivy has in her body. Surely Harley understands this, can feel exactly how Ivy feels with every move of the fingers on her hand or every swivel of her hips. Even if Ivy can’t vocalize it, she’s telling it loudly without sound. That mistakes aren’t something you do twice. 

So when Harley says “I love you,” Ivy’s throat closes up and Harley walks away leaving her standing on the precipice of being with her or going back to the safety of a life where her heart will never break because of love (she doesn’t even think about being whole. That’s a separate matter altogether) 

Villains don’t get happily ever afters. They don’t win the day or get the girl. The wither and die and ache and hurt. They sabotage and wreck and destroy because any ounce of good is not a part of the narrative of the life of someone who has chosen the fringe to live on. 

Ivy tells herself this on the flight back, trying to ignore the hopeful smile that plays on Harley’s lips. _I’m so sorry_ , Ivy thinks. For what she’s already done. For what she’s about to do. For how she is probably going to wreck and destroy them completely.


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Takes place during the last few episodes  
> **I tried to come up with something that hasn't already done, but if you're wondering what my headcanon is for these two post season two, read "everyone keeps laughing at those cars we are passing" by paddingtonfan69. It's just bloody brilliant.  
> ***There are some Easter eggs in this chapter 1) Killing Eve quote 2) New 52 scenario for Ivy 3) direct quote from Harley from HQ/PI 1-5 4) Ivy takes down Terracare in one of her comics

It should be funny how the rest of forever starts, but Ivy feels like it’s been a long time coming. 

The thing about swearing off humans for the most part is that it’s really hard to be one after that. And Harley would probably laugh and tell her she’s stunted emotionally while she herself clobbers someone’s brains out with a bat that says ‘Goodnight.’ 

But Ivy has had a lot of practice shoving things down or going along nicely with things because it looks like something normal people do, regular ones who haven’t developed cellular and DNA changes to turn them into something more plant than human. So really, she’s felt like she’s been moonlighting all along, wearing the shoes of humanity but not really making them fit. 

People fall in love. They get married. They learn to live quiet lives and be quieter people. That’s adaptability. And Ivy knows something about adaptability, solely because it’s one thing that exists in both the worlds she holds a foot inside. 

But she lets it go on too long. She delays the inevitable end, the inevitable outcome. The one that presented itself in a hallway in Arkham what seems like yesterday and forever ago. It was so much easier to continue to think this quiet type of life would work it’s way into her bones if she let herself fall into it long enough, but it ever did. 

All she could think of was wanting everything to be  _ loud _ . Not necessarily messes or chaos but loud actions and loud gestures and loud hearts. Oh, how she’s wanted to let the last one be heard for so long. 

Finally,  _ finally _ , it’s possible. 

Because Harley saves Ivy from herself. Because she’s sound and noise and Ivy misses even the pitch of her voice when they’re not together. But none of that is easy to say, even when Harley is staring her in the face and professing her heart yet again, pouring it out to tell Ivy what she already knows: they belong together.

It takes standing at the ledge to finally admit she never should have been up there in the first place. He does her a favor in the end. He severs Ivy from the person she thought she had to be to the person she’s wanted to be. The person who gets to have her best friend in her heart and in her arms and in her bed and not be embarrassed by the truth of it. 

Once she starts running, she never wants to stop. Because there’s Harley and her unwavering loyalty, her unending sense of love that fills Ivy fuller than she’s felt in her entire fucking life. 

It’s why they drive until Harley can’t go on anymore, until the gas in her metaphorical tank and the literal one of their getaway car are almost on empty. It’s why even though Ivy’s wearing a wedding dress, she bridal style carries Harley in her arms through the door and lays her gently on the bed in their motel. It’s why she strips them both completely and feels Harley against her bare skin for the first time in the dreadful weeks she’d had to starve herself of touch or even Harley’s presence. 

No part of her feels like she’s earned this though, at least not yet. Harley had taken her unselfishly despite everything, so when the sun lifts tomorrow, it’s Ivy’s turn to show Harley exactly why she’s the absolute love of her life. 

And while she would like to touch Harley into oblivion in the most sacred parts of her, to bow down on her knees and find absolution between her thighs, tonight is for the lull, the break in the loud before it all begins again. And how does Ivy know this as she wraps herself ever tighter around the form in her arms?

Because this is Harley fucking Quinn. 

**************************

The days don’t so much blur as bleed together. Ivy finds she spends most of them pressed against Harley in some type of way. 

Be it an arm around her shoulder or hip against a hip, palm flush against Harley’s lower back or lips finding solace in a number of places across her skin. It continues on like this for countless hours which then somehow turn into the days they’re both missing at some point. 

Up until now, they haven’t talked a lot about what it is they’re doing. Leaving the wedding had been Ivy’s first chance at breath, a long-held one that grew painful with each passing moment lacking an exhale. Always holding, always trembling and ready to let go. So of course, Harley is the one to bring everything up as she lies atop Ivy’s flesh.

“Do you regret it?” she says behind the muffled speaking from her lips, Ivy’s chest prohibiting a clear uttering of it. 

“Hardly,” Ivy scoffs and Harley lifts her head then. 

“Don’t play it off like it wasn’t shit,” Harley frowns. “You said ‘I do.’ I mighta been crunching a cop’s face in with my feet, but I definitely heard you say it.”

“Harls, we don’t have to do this…” Ivy trails off and that causes Harley to slide up her body, to push their breasts together and stare down into Ivy’s eyes. 

“You know I’m shit with remembering the days, but not so long ago, you were about to marry someone else. Even after I told ya how I felt. What made ya change your mind?”

“Because you’re you, Harley. I never stood a chance with anyone else.”

Ivy lets out a sigh but not in exasperation. More from having the weight of the truth lifted from her body and mind. She brings a hand up to Harley’s cheek and holds it there, looking into impossibly blue eyes. “Those vows of his, he just…had this super specific vision of how his life was supposed to look. And I think he always thought I was going to fit into it. I think I thought I  _ could _ fit into it. But listening to him...it wasn’t ever really about  _ me _ . He may have loved me, sure. And the part of me that could love him did.”

She feels Harley tense at this, sees the almost imperceptible flinch across her face. This is not news to Harley though. At least it shouldn’t be. But whatever Ivy felt for him was most definitely not the same as what she feels for her best friend. This uncategorical thing that cannot be defined under any umbrella is so much bigger than just loving Harley in an utterly confounding way. It’s hard to pinpoint it when it is simply everything. 

“Babe, this is the only type of life where I know the vision includes me for who I am. For what I might want too. That was never an option in the past. You and me?” Ivy leans up to take Harley’s mouth against her, to make a promise with her lips. “This is what I see when I think about my future. Your face, over and over again.”

“Oh, Ive…”

“Mmm, pretty good, huh?” Ivy smirks. 

“Okay, don’t get so full’a yourself,” Harley rolls off the top of her and comes to rest by her side. Her tone is light and she finds Ivy’s hand on top of the sheet covering their bodies. 

They fall into a relative quiet then. No television, no lovemaking, no speaking. There’s just the soft expulsion of each of their breaths to fill the room. 

“So, how long do ya think it’ll take before Gordon forgets I fucked up most of the city. Twice,” she frowns. 

“Never, likely,” Ivy says drolly. “The man is a bit self-absorbed. Plus you did sort of shit on the hierarchy of the city, not once but twice. First by taking out most of the villains and next by unleashing parademons.”

Suddenly, a pillow is being shoved in Ivy’s face and she fights against it playfully. 

“Ugh, shut up and don’t remind me,” Harley whines, and then lets Ivy have the upper hand as the pillow is thrown to the recesses of the floor, the very spot their clothes have seemed to live for the last number of days. 

Ivy smiles down at her and nudges her with her nose. Harley’s hands come up to frame her face and she pulls her back to look into her eyes. 

“I did it for you, you know,” Harley whispers. 

_Because of me_ , Ivy thinks and when does she get to feel less guilty about literally fucking everything? 

“Yeah, I know,” Ivy admits sadly. Because she does. Because she has all along. 

“Darkseid accused me of doing it to fill a hole in me,” Harley continues. 

“Now you’ve got me to fill all of those holes, hon,” Ivy bites at the pulse point in Harley’s neck. When the joke falls flat, she lifts her head to see the seriousness in Harley’s face. “Hey, I’m sorry, okay? But I’m here now and I know I’ve fucked up but if you’ll have me, I’m finally ready. Because I don’t care what everyone else wants me to do. What matters is what you think, how we are together. Our own little world with one another—I’m ready to create it, to grow it. Only with you.”

“Ive, that’s all I’ve wanted from the start,” Harley breathes. “Also, the ‘hole’ thing was a good one.”

“I know, right? Can’t believe you’re just now reacting.” 

“So what do we do now, Pam-a-lamb? Wait until Gordon forgets we’re bad guys on the run?”

“Could take a while,” Ivy admits. 

“Mmm,” Harley hums. “Then I guess we better keep ourselves busy.”

These words are spoken against the slope of Ivy’s skin again.

***********************

“I mean, we’re talking about the fucking plants here, man,” Ivy says frustratingly. “They even made that shitty movie with Mark Whalberg that talks about how when you fuck with the environment, shit happens.” 

“Ohh, I did love him as part of the Funky Bunch,” Harley leans against her mallet and looks wistful. “The Calvin Klein ads didn’t hurt either.”

“A little focus here,  _ my _ girlfriend? I mean, how can I even compete with that rather terrifying image?” Ivy waves to snap Harley from her muscled, underpants daydream. 

Harley twirls using her mallet handle for balance and plants a quick kiss on Ivy’s lips. “He so can't even begin to hang with you. Thusly…”

“Don’t say ‘thusly’...”

“In addition, you do all the stuff that took him out in that shitty movie. Who needs killer plants when I got my own right here?” Harley punctuates her sentence with a squeeze of Ivy’s rear. 

“Yeah, okay. I did like the fact that plants were targeting humans in a sort of chemical warfare,” Ivy admits with a smile on her lips and Harley still hanging on her side. She loses it though when she looks over to the mute bodies staring at her and Harley with wide eyes. “It’s called  _ The Happening _ , assholes. You should have watched it.”

She lets go of Harley’s waist and ambles back toward the board of trustees and CEO’s of Terracare, all looking terrified behind their mouth gags. Instead of looking into organic ways to sustain crops, they’d instead lined their pockets with money from their fertilizer products that all but destroy bee populations. And so goes the way of the bees…

“How should we do it, Harls? It’s gotta be something good.”

“Cover them in a  _ different _ type of fertilizer until they drown in it?” Harley asks hopefully. She adds a wink for emphasis on her joke.

“I had enough trouble finding margarita mix. You really think I can find a solid ton of natural fertilizer on the fly?” Ivy frowns. 

“Hey, ya asked,” Harley shrugs and then comes up behind Ivy, wrapping her arms around her waist and setting her chin on her shoulder. “How do  _ you _ want to do it, baby?” 

Ivy lets a smile curl at her lips and she cranes her head a little to meet Harley’s eyes. “Tag team?”

“Oh-ho. I’m so down for that,” Harley says evilly. 

They both walk away from the dead bodies in pieces behind them, a mess of vines and wooden mallet that have created a smear splatter on the once pristine marble floor. 

******************

“All I’m saying is, if the world is really broken, what’s the point of breaking it?” Harley calls out from their room, another temporary lodging in a line of many. 

Ivy unwraps the towel from her red tresses and runs her fingers through them, trying to work a few of the tangles out as she finishes her shower. 

“But becoming heroes? I know you said you didn’t really feel like a bad guy anymore, but I’m not sure the hero crowd would exactly embrace the two of us. We sort of live in that gray area in between,” Ivy answers and walks out of the door in only the white terry cloth towel. 

But this point, she and Harley are so well versed in one another’s bodies, there’s little to feel apprehensive about. Forgoing much clothing is one of them. She stills when she looks at Harley perched on the bed, gazing quietly down at something in her hand. That’s when she sees what Harley is holding: her phone. 

“Harls, what are you doing?” she starts slowly, trying to keep from sounding defensive and panicky. 

“When were you going to tell me about this?” Harley whispers. She holds the phone up to show the email Ivy has burned into the back of her mind on end for the last two days. 

“Hon’...”

“Fucking Wayne Enterprises!? You’re going to work for Batsy!?” Harley all but screams. 

“Calm the fuck down,” Ivy hisses and comes to sit beside Harley’s distraught form on the bed. When she tries to put a hand on Harley’s back, the woman pulls away. “Oh, come on! You were just talking about going to the light side.”

She watches as Harley rises and begins to pace. “And what happens to me? Where do I fit in with your new fancy job working for Bruce Wayne?”

“This may come as a surprise to you, but we can do separate things. You have always managed to stay busy before. And I mean, I hadn’t said anything about this because I didn’t even know how to process it yet. But it seems like an olive branch,” Ivy tries to soothe. “It seems like it might be our way back into Gotham. Safely.”

There’s a lot back in Gotham Ivy would prefer to leave behind forever. With so much wide open space, Ivy knows she could make a home with Harley practically anywhere. But Harley thrives in Gotham, makes its seedy streets and even seedier people playthings in her chaos. It’s in these streets and amongst these people where Ivy fell in love with her. 

“It’s your city,” Ivy finally shrugs again. 

“You’d do that for me, Ive? Go back there and work for the Bat and let me have the playground I’ve always known back? You’d turn to tha good side for me?” Harley questions. 

“I’d do anything for you,” Ivy whispers. 

And then Harley is in her arms and there are kisses being pressed to every inch of her uncovered skin. Harley works her fingers underneath the towel and untucks its hold. It falls onto the bed in a cascade. 

“Let’s go home,” Harley groans against Ivy, and then they don’t talk anymore. 

Eventually, they come up for air and eventually they make it back to their old stomping grounds. There is no fanfare, no wailing sirens or sounding guns. When they walk into the mall, they’re enveloped into boisterous hugs from King Shark and Clayface. They don’t speak about the one that’s missing (because fuck that guy in the ass) even though they probably both owe him for setting a troubling set of events into motion that brought them together finally. 

Life, as it turns out, isn’t much different from what it was before, save for Gordon mostly being off their ass. They still cause a ruckus, Ivy still has to rein in Harley’s zeal more often than not. 

But their new life in Gotham, an unstoppable force together, doesn’t change them as much as they thought it would. Even if Ivy is spending more of her days in lab coats than the itch in her bones can sometimes bear. Even if Harley has to be frequently reminded by those she so vehemently thought she wanted to be a part of that she can’t go balls to the wall every time. 

In the end, they settle into a life that works for them both, Harley the beautiful anti-hero that holds every single bit of Ivy’s heart and Ivy the chemist and environmental warrior that let an even wilder soul wrap around her own like vines and never let go.

Their story isn’t a conventional one. Just one that turns out to be damn wonderful to live in. 


End file.
